Hey guys, this is going to be a short story, no more than five chapters I think.
This is a Ginny/Rabastan pairing in a Voldemort wins AU. Warnings for major character death, attempted suicide, the possibility of both violence and scenes of a sexual nature.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, all recognizable content belongs to JK Rowling.
If there was ever anything that Ginny Weasley was sure about it was that she loved Harry Potter. Had loved him from the first moment she had ever seen him at Kings Cross when she was ten years old. For six years she had loved him, worshiped him even. She'd devoted herself to him, waited for him, tried to get over him, failed to get over him, and after five years of torment he'd finally given in.
It hadn't lasted long. War made everything complicated, it blurred lines, it destroyed people, it made foolish Gryffindor boys with hero complexes break up with their girlfriends so that they could go running off to look for dark objects that no one knows anything about.
She'd spent so long waiting for news about him, gone so long with nothing more than whispers and rumors and nothing concrete. And then he was there, in the castle, standing in front of her in the Room of Requirement and she was so happy to see him that she forgot that they were in the middle of a war. She forgot that they weren't together anymore, that Harry had left her without so much as a real goodbye. Because it didn't matter that he had been a git about it because he was alive.
There hadn't been much time to be happy though. Before she knew it they were fighting again, engaged in the most intense battle she'd seen so far and people around her were dropping like flies. Colin Creevey, Remus and Tonks, Lavender Brown, even one of her own brothers, Fred, all gone in the blink of an eye. Lost to the mindless violence of their opposition.
She was tired of death. Tired of fighting. Tired of the war. The war had torn Ginny Weasley's heart apart and by the time Harry's body hit the floor of the Great Hall all she wanted was to die. There was nothing left that was worth living for.
Harry wasn't even cold before the executions began. The first one to go was Ginny's mother, followed closely by her father and then every male member of both Dumbledore's Army and the Order. Neville and Dean and Seamus, boys she had been friends with for years, all of them joined the pile of bodies that had begun to grow on top of Harry. When Bill and Charlie were brought forward Ginny began to scream.
Someone held her back when she tried to rush forward, tried to stop it from happening, to throw herself in front of them and beg for their lives. She didn't even realize that she was crying until she sagged into the arms of her captor and broke into hysterical sobs as her two eldest brothers both dropped to the floor, their eyes open and glassy, staring lifelessly at the ceiling. George and Percy went next and when Percy's eyes connected with hers she felt something deep inside of her shatter.
"I love you Ginerva," he said, his words barely reaching her across the distance between them before the jet of green light from Voldemort's wand hit him in the chest. He fell to the ground in slow motion, landing with a dull thud that she knew would echo in her nightmares for the rest of her life.
She never would have admitted it if anyone had asked, never would have told anyone willingly that Percy was her favorite brother. The only brother that had noticed when she was falling apart during her first year. The one that made her eat when she had no appetite, that asked her everyday if she was okay, if she needed anything. The one who always had time to talk to her when she was upset or hurt or just need to talk. Percy who had understood her and loved her more than anyone, was gone.
Ron was next, and then Ginny was alone. The only Weasley left in the world. She hoped that she wouldn't be for long. After Ron she stopped paying attention, a lot of people died, a few of them Ginny knew, most of them she didn't, she couldn't bring herself to care either way. All she could think about was the bodies of her parents and her brothers and the only man she had ever loved and she just couldn't bring herself to care about any of the others that were being piled on top of her family.
The executions stopped. Ginny listened as Voldemort praised his followers, as he commended them for their determination to win the wizarding world for him. She listened as he began to pass out female prisoners like trophies. Hermione was given to Theodore Nott, Luna was passed to Draco Malfoy, Hannah Abbot went to Thorfinn Rowle, Cho Chang to Yaxley, name after name was called and they were all given a prisoner and told that they could do with them what they wished and Ginny prayed that whoever got her would kill her as soon as possible.
"Rabastan," Voldemort called. "You have been loyal, you have fought well, I think that it is only fair that you are rewarded as well."
"Thank you my Lord," Rabastan, the man who was holding Ginny captive, who had held her back when she'd attempted to save her brothers, replied.
"You may have the Weasley girl," Voldemort told him. She might have been upset if she cared. But her family was dead. She had lost everything. The love of her life was dead. And Ginny couldn't bring herself to feel anything but grief.
"Thank you my Lord," Rabastan repeated. Ginny wondered if he knew any words other than Thank you my Lord, or Yes my Lord, or – probably – I'm sorry my Lord.
Later, when Rabastan brought her to his home, she finally got a good look at the man who was meant to be her keeper. Rabastan Lestrange was not a bad looking man, in fact if he was not a deplorable excuse for a human being and hadn't aided in the downfall of Harry Potter Ginny might have found him attractive. He was young, no older than his mid-thirties, with dark hair and onyx eyes.
They stared at each other in the entryway for a long time before Ginny got up the courage to speak. "Kill me," she begged, her eyes sparkling with tears. He gazed at her impassively and let the silence between them grow until it was nearly unbearable.
"No," he whispered and Ginny found that she could feel something other than grief. She could feel hate.
..oo0O0oo..
After he refused to kill her she went on a rampage. She threw things, broke things, overturned furniture, accidentally set things on fire, and when she had destroyed nearly every thing that Rabastan owned she sat on the floor and cried.
No one could ever call Rabastan Lestrange a good man. He never deluded himself into thinking that he was good person who had made mistakes in his past but had changed his ways. He was a bad person, you could probably go as far as to call him evil. He killed without second thought, raped without conscience, tortured without guilt. His soul was just as dark as the mark on his left arm and he had never felt ashamed of it in his life.
But standing in the doorway and watching Ginny Weasley cry in the middle of his kitchen floor Rabastan knew that something deep inside of him had shifted. Never in his life had he felt such an overwhelming urge to protect someone, to wrap himself around them and make it so that nothing could ever harm them. She made him feel things that he'd long since decided that he just wasn't capable of feeling. It was a confusing swirl of remorse and shame that he'd never encountered before and he hated it.
"Follow me Miss Weasley," he commanded, doing his best to keep his voice even. "I will show you to your room." He turned and exited the kitchen, not bothering to see if she was following him. He walked through the house and opened the door to the bedroom, the only bedroom in the house that was currently furnished and stepped back to let her enter first.
"What happens now?" she asked, her voice hoarse from all the screaming and crying she'd done. He stared at her for a long moment, trying to decide how best to answer her question when he wasn't quite so sure what the answer was himself.
"You go into the bathroom and you take a shower, I'll leave something for you to wear on the bed," he decided. "Then you're going to get into bed and go to sleep, you've had a bad day, you're exhausted, and you're not going to be of any use to me if you're on the verge of collapsing." She raised an eyebrow at him.
"You're not going to rape me in my sleep are you?" she demanded.
If he was being completely honest with himself he couldn't say that the thought hadn't crossed his mind. Ginny was a very pretty girl, he wouldn't mind having her, but there was something about her that made him want to wait until she wanted him. He wanted it to be her choice, another foreign notion that the girl had brought into his life. In the past it had never much mattered to him if a witch was willing or not, if he wanted her he would take her, but this witch... she was different.
"No." He shook his head. "This is the only furnished bedroom in the house, so I'm afraid that you'll have to share the bed with me, but I'm not going to rape you." She gave him a look that told him that she didn't believe a word he was saying but she walked into the bathroom and slammed the door without saying another word, which he decided was about as close to acceptance as they were going to get.
He walked to his closet and picked out a clean pair of boxers and one of his old Quidditch jerseys and left them on the bed for her before he slipped out of the room and went around the house repairing broken items and righting the furniture, wondering what the hell he was going to do with the witch that the Dark Lord had gifted him.